


A Silent Fate

by MrsJoyceChilvers



Category: Downton Abbey
Genre: Gen, Violet Crawley by mention
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:39:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,167
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707980
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrsJoyceChilvers/pseuds/MrsJoyceChilvers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Three weeks after moving to Paris, the Kuragins evaluate and take stock.</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Silent Fate

At first the silence had been welcome. It was a relief to not have to talk to his wife. His mind lay elsewhere - in England, in a small village, and to a second lost chance that, if possible, stung more painfully than it had the first time.

But as desirable as the silence had been in those first days in Paris, it had now become torturous - a purgatory of stillness and dismissive looks - their small room a jail of sorts, in which husband and wife shared space but did not live.

 

Igor Kuragin had until now thought the meagre room in York to be his lowest moment; the dilapidated furnishings and torn wallpaper symbolic of his own fall - the loss of his wealth, his pride, his sense of being and purpose. Whatever money he had left, and in truth, it was little, went marginally further in Paris, but despite the relatively more pleasant abode, his life felt even more pointless now than it had in that little room of grime and despair. He'd ceased to exist beyond the physical shell of his body. Paris offered so much, indeed many of his kin had slowly begun to thrive again, but to Igor it might as well have been a prison.

From his chair by the window, Igor stole a glance at his wife. Since being reunited three weeks earlier, they'd barely exchanged more than a dozen words. Irina spent most of her time reading or knitting - neither of which he could recall her doing much back in Russia. Irina had been a social creature then with a particularly rambunctious group of friends. She'd liked parties and shopping, and had by the time he'd met her, already become one of the most glamorous women in Russian society. He had loved her - loved her stridency, her spirit, her refusal to be anything but herself. He had married her with a sureness and certainty that he could love no other, that he'd met his match. For a moment as he looked at her in the present, he wondered where that girl from his youth had gone. He barely recognised the woman who now shared the room with him. Hong Kong and the Revolution had changed her, yes, but even long before that his Irina had vanished. Had it been the inability to have children? Perhaps, but then he'd always gone out of his way to make clear that he didn't mind - that he loved her and anything else was but a bonus on top of the happiness he already felt. Over the years he had tried to pinpoint when things had changed between them - when the easy going nature of their relationship had shifted into the stilted and formal. He'd never found the answer, and eventually, by 1874, he'd stopped looking.

Back when he'd first been married, he could never have believed himself to be one of those men who had a mistress. His father had, and he'd seen what it had done to his mother. He had married Irina with the absolute conviction that she would be the only women he ever took to bed. And yet within ten years of marriage he had begun to seek solace elsewhere. He loved his wife, but there had ceased to be any comfort at home. Somehow his little quirks, which Irina had once found endearing, had now started to annoy her. His smoking, his habit of repeatedly humming specific musical phrases from whatever opera they had last seen - all now grated on her. He hadn't consciously gone looking for a mistress, but by the time he'd taken one, he no longer felt like his home was his own. And in truth, as selfish as it sounded, he'd missed sex too. He'd never pressed Irina to share her bed, indeed he'd never had to in those glorious early years of marriage, but Irina had cut herself off from him and eventually temptation had won out.

Turning his attention back to the newspaper in his hands, Igor began, what had become a daily ritual of scanning for news from England, for concealed within _Le Monde_ , was _The London Times_ \- two days late, but the only tangible connection he still had to life across the channel. Each day he opened its pages with a quiet terror, fearing bad news - an accident, or perhaps illness - and so far each day he'd closed it with the only sense of peace he could feel. It seemed today would be the same; the society columns were as vacuous as always, and there was nothing of note elsewhere in the pages. With a faint sigh, Igor closed his eyes and counted this particular blessing.

"I'm going to make some tea, would you like some?"

At first, he wasn't sure if Irina had heard him - she'd not even flinched at the sound of his voice.

"Irina?"

This time she did reply, with a dismissive wave of her hand, and a mumbled "no".

The room afforded them little privacy from each other. It was as far a cry from their old home in Russia as one could get, and the shared living space only intensified the prevailing coldness between the couple. Back in St. Petersburg it had been easy to avoid each other - by the time the Revolution had come, Igor's bedroom had been at one end of the house, Irina's the other. They occasionally saw each other at dinner, no more. Now though, there was no escape. Their separate beds sat side by side, the space between oddly indicative of the state of their union. Two chairs and a small rickety table sat by the window, and in a corner there a small space for making tea. The bathroom they shared with three other Russian couples, all, like them, exiles.

 

Distractedly, Igor began to brew the tea, his mind drifting back to another instant when he had. Paris might have afforded a small improvement in living conditions, but oh how he wished he could turn around and be in that room in York again - to see _her_ in one of the chairs instead. Just as quickly, he admonished himself. Such thinking would do him no good now. That moment had gone, and he needed to make the best of his situation.

Carefully, he poured two cups. Irina had said no, but it was just tea. They were stuck together now, it was time to start making the best of it, for a thaw to happen.

"You might as well have a cup. It's a shame to waste the hot water."

As before, Irina didn't react, other than to turn a page of her book.

"Irina?"

"I said no. I do not want a cup of tea."

Her accent had become stronger over the years, its heavy drawl giving a disinterested tone to her speech.

"It's just tea, not poison."

Quickly, she lifted her gaze and looked up at him. Her eyes had narrowed, her expression worryingly indiscernible. For a moment Igor was sure she'd say something, but then she unexpectedly rose from her seat, and took the tea cup from his hand.

Silently they regarded each other, until Igor ventured a soft smile. Whatever Irina was thinking, and she'd never been easy to read, even at the best of times, he wanted her to know that he meant no harm, but then to his quiet horror she turned away, moved towards the small sink in the room and in a single movement, emptied the contents of the cup.

His anger seemed to shock them both. His tea cup now lay in smithereens on the floor - tea dripping down the wall five feet from where Irina stood. He'd not aimed at her, in truth, he'd not aimed at all, but at the sight of her downing the tea into the sink, he snapped - his patience gone in a flash as weeks of silence finally took their toll.

Irina seemed to recover the quickest, her momentary flash of fear giving way to indignation and a look that spoke of nothing but dispassion and irritation.

"I do hope you plan to clean that. This place is squalid enough without you adding to it," and with that she moved to return to her seat.

Although the initial rush of anger had dissipated, his patience had not returned. Igor had had enough. The detente they'd been living under had become intolerable - Irina's refusal of the tea seemed systematic of her entrenched behaviour. She'd not given an inch since returning from the Far East, and it couldn't go on.

"This can't continue. The silence, the refusal to try. I know things weren’t exactly good between us before the Bolsheviks came, but we have to try now. This is all there is, Irina - you and I and this room."

Like before, Irina said nothing. With her back to him, she returned to her seat and her book and appeared to start reading again, but then after a moment she spoke. Her voice as cold as Igor could ever remember hearing it.

"This is all there is because your mistress made it so."

Finally, there is was. The elephant in the room, the great unspoken that neither had dared to broach since being reunited. Violet.

"Violet was trying to help. She brought you home from Hong Kong."

"Yes, how _very_ kind of her."

Irina's tone had become clipped; the words spat from her mouth like she'd tasted something nasty.

"She brought me back so she could bask in my humiliation. Forced to wear one of her dresses, her nightclothes. There's no kindness in that, just revenge."

To Igor, his wife's reasoning was unfathomable - she'd taken an act of charity and twisted it. He knew Irina hated Violet, and goodness knew she'd had every reason to, but she was being unfair. The marriage had already been in trouble by the time he'd met Violet. He'd had had four mistresses by then, all of which Irina had known about, indeed he'd taken other lovers after Violet too, but it had been Violet, and Violet alone that bore the brunt of her venom.

"I think you're being unfair, Irina..."

"Why? It's not like you tried to find me, but for some reason she did. You both could have had me declared dead, but no - she went looking, she wanted to see how far I'd fallen."

For a moment there was nothing but silence. In truth, Igor had never been sure of Violet's thinking in conducting the search for Irina, but then she'd started the process weeks before he'd finally revealed his love for her. He suspected that by then it was too late to call the search off... at least he'd hoped that was the case. His train of thought though was broken as Irina spoke again.

"Tell me, Igor, did you make love to her? Did she let you into her gilded bed?"

It was Igor's turn to be silent. His wife's sudden rediscovery of her voice was unsettling. After weeks of nothing but one word replies, it was disconcerting to hear Irina in full flow. Time most certainly had not mellowed her, nor diminished her skill with a direct and pointed line of questioning.

"Violet is a lady..."

"HA, that is the last thing she is."

Irina now rose from her chair again and turned to face her husband. Since coming to Paris she'd seemed despondent and frail, and far older than her actual age. Now though, in this particular moment, she seemed steely and ready to fight. Her eyes glinted with danger - sharp and pinning. Every movement was precise; every word now seemed specially selected for maximum impact and damage.

"Violet Crawley was never a lady. She is a whore - was and is."

"For God's sake, Irina, she wasn't my first lover nor my last. Can't you just accept what she did at face value? As a kindness?"

To Igor's shame, he heard his voice rise. He'd wanted to have it out with his wife, but not for it to descend into a slanging match. Quickly, he drew in a deep breath, desperate to steady himself, to calm himself before the loud voices gave way to outright screaming. He also didn't want Irina to see how much her talk of Violet was getting to him.

"Violet Crawley was never just another lover, though, was she?! No, you were eloping with her. You were prepared to abandon _everything_ for her!"

Again, Irina seemed to spit her words - each mention of "her" forced from her lips like a bad taste.

"Irina, please, Violet and I..."

If Irina had heard Igor's interjection, she made no indication of it. Instead she continued, a lifetime of anger and frustration now pouring forth.

"And you're still in love with her. Don't pretend you're not. I saw how you looked at her that evening. I had to stand there, in her house, in her clothes, and know that you wanted her - that if you had had your way, she'd be your wife."

He couldn’t deny it – everything his wife had just said was true. He loved Violet, and had Irina died, he would have sought to marry her, although he remained uncertain whether Violet would have had him. There had been moments, fleeting flashes of the old spark between them – a look that lingered just a second too long here, a soft gasp there. Violet had become a master of stoicism, of hiding her emotions behind a mask of good manners and breeding, but despite the Dowager title and the primness, he could still see his Violet. She was still there, just hidden now under a lifetime of duty.

“Well at least you have the good grace not to lie.”

Irina’s voice caught him by surprise. For a moment he’d been too focused on Violet, to the "what ifs" of the summer – and by the time he’d realised his error, it was too late. Irina had turned away again, her attention once more on her book.

The wave of shame was immediate; he’d been grossly unfair to his wife. Somehow he’d never understood it before. Back in St. Petersburg both had seemingly been too invested in hurting each other. The affair with Violet had changed things – the unspoken cold war that had existed during his earlier dalliances, had in the aftermath of the failed elopement with Violet become openly hostile. They had kept up appearances in public, but within the walls of their own home, it had become a viper’s nest of sniping and harsh words. The revolution had for a brief time brought about a small reprieve – survival instinct had a way of trumping all other concerns – but it seemed like those few months spent hiding and then later under house arrest, fearing death, had been forgotten. The détente had been broken as Violet returned to their lives.

“Irina…”

“Don’t Igor; your silence said it all for you.”

“Perhaps, but I am sorry.”

For a moment, she neither moved nor spoke, her entire body as still as a marble statue, until slowly she turned her head the tiniest of amounts to the side.

“Sorry? For what? Being in love with someone else?”

Her voice no longer sounded harsh, indeed its tone had taken on a measure of softness that Igor couldn’t recall hearing for years.

“Yes, I suppose I am in a way. I’m more sorry for what happened to you. I wasn’t a very good husband. You lost everything and I couldn’t stop it.”

This time Irina turned around completely, until her head peeked over the back of the chair.

“Oh please, Igor, not even you could have stopped the Revolution, even if you and your ego would like to believe otherwise.”

Irina had always had a way with words, and perhaps even more so than Violet, she knew him.

“I am sorry.”

“So you’ve said.“

“I know, but I want you to know that I’m sorry about Downton. Despite what you want to think, I did try to find you, but then I met Violet and she took over. It wasn’t revenge, it was…”

Suddenly his own fear came into focus – the niggling doubt that had plagued him since Irina had been found and Violet had told him it was “how it must be”. What if she hadn’t wanted him, if she no longer loved him as he did her? For the last three weeks he’d chalked up Violet's decision to a flawed notion of nobility – goodness knows, the English were known for it, but what if it had been something else? What if she’d taken one look at him in his tatty suit and decided no. He couldn’t blame her, he had nothing to offer.

“You think she didn’t want you and decided to offload you onto me?”

Trust Irina to voice what he’d been too scared to even think about, but then she’d always been blunt. She had never been one for dithering or for ten words when three would do.

“Perhaps…”

Even now, Igor felt bile in his throat in admitting the fear.

“I would say Madam Crawley well and truly got her revenge if that was the case. Lumbering you on me…”

To Igor’s surprise, Irina then smiled. It had been years since he’d seen her do so, or at least years since he’d seen a truly warm smile as the one she had now.

She’d been jesting – a joke at his expense.

“I shouldn’t worry, she loves you. But this is what you get for falling for an English woman – boring and idiotic nobility. And I’m afraid what you get for marrying a Russian woman is no divorce.”

He nodded. He'd always known that. Even when he'd talked about the idea to Violet, he'd known deep down Irina would not allow it.

"It's not because I want you, you understand, but I have nothing left, Igor. If things were different now then maybe, I doubt there would be much scandal in this ghetto in us divorcing, but like you said, this is it. This is all there is now."

Quietly, Irina turned her attention back to her book, leaving Igor to ponder what had just passed between them. She was a remarkable woman, and as strong as anyone he'd ever known. He still had no idea why or just exactly when it had gone so wrong between them. Perhaps it had just been one of those things - people fall in love, and they fall out of love, and then there was that rare instance of being in love with someone for a lifetime. He'd experienced both, and in the end both women had been hurt. He'd often felt his fate had been unjust - the loss of everything, and Violet - but as he begun to clean the shattered pieces of the cup and the spilled tea from the floor, he chanced another look at his wife by the window. Perhaps his fate had been the right one after all.


End file.
